By Marty Gordon
The Virginia Tech men’s basketball team received some help from the transfer portal recently with the announcements that 7’-1” Michael Durr will transfer to Tech from South Florida and former Wofford guard Storm Murphy will join his former coach, Mike Young, in Blacksburg.
Durr averaged 8.8 points and 7.9 rebounds last season and finished his third year at South Florida. He will have two years of eligibility left because of the NCAA COVID waiver this season.
Murphy started all 34 games this past season, averaging 11.9 points while dishing out a team-high 121 assists.
On the other hand, the Hokies have been hurt by the college basketball’s new norm of the transfer portal in that Joseph Bamisile and Jalen Cone entered the portal and will finish out their college playing days on other campuses.
At Radford, the Highlanders men’s program has likewise been hurt by the transfer portal. Six players, including two starters, have entered the portal. Former Radford High School all-star Quinton Morton-Robertson and starter Fah’mir Ali, who led RU in scoring this past season, have entered the transfer portal.
As of this week, 1,000 players are in basketball’s transfer portal.
According to the NCAA, the transfer portal was created as a compliance tool to systematically manage the transfer process from start to finish, to add more transparency to the process among schools, and to empower student-athletes to make known their desire to consider other programs.
But instead, the portal is an actual website where coaches all over the country can go to find and recruit players looking for a new home in the college ranks.
The bottom line in this illustrious portal, which conjures up images of Star Trek and its transmission to another planet, allows student-athletes to transfer because of the lack of playing time, a mismatch between their athletics expectations and their experience, coaching issues, and just the hope of playing somewhere else.
This year has made it a lot easier for unhappy players to transfer as the NCAA has waived off the year thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. This means that most transferring players could be eligible immediately and have an extra year of playing time.
